GOAR, EVERETT LOGAN

GOAR, EVERETT LOGAN (1886–1971). Everett (Jake) Logan Goar, ophthalmologist, was born in Clinton County, Indiana, on November 13, 1886. He graduated from Kirklin High School (1903) and Indiana University (1907). In 1909 he received his M.D. from Rush Medical School, Chicago, after which he spent two years as an intern at Cook County Hospital. He also trained at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, the University of Colorado in Boulder, and the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. He received his doctor of ophthalmology degree from the University of Colorado in 1925.

In 1911 Goar moved to Houston, Texas, to open a general practice. During his early years there, he also did laboratory work at the Baptist Sanitarium. He raised guinea pigs at his home to obtain serum for Wassermann tests. He joined the United States Army Medical Corps in June 1917 as a first lieutenant and rose to the rank of major. He was stationed at Douglas, Arizona, where he treated hundreds of civilians and soldiers during the 1918 flu epidemic. After the war Goar resumed private practice and shortly thereafter began specializing in ophthalmology. He became a fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1922 and was certified by the American Board of Ophthalmology in 1923. In 1943 he was appointed professor of ophthalmology and chairman of the ophthalmology department at Baylor University College of Medicine. He had been involved in the decision to move the school to Houston from Dallas. He held these positions until 1957. He retired from private practice on January 1, 1971, and donated his office equipment to a young ophthalmologist in the impoverished province of Kasai, Zaire.

Goar wrote more than forty-five articles in his field, as well as the Handbook of Ophthalmology (1948). He served as a director for the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness from 1952 to 1960. In 1961 the society awarded him the Leslie Dana Gold Medal Award for establishing a state branch of the organization in Texas. His work with the Boy Scouts led to his receipt of the Silver Beaver Award in 1936. In 1948 Goar published an article in a national medical journal urging that a "great medical school," including modern facilities for postgraduate training, be established in the South to train black physicians. Among his professional affiliations Goar served as secretary-treasurer (1912) and president (1922) of the Harris County Medical Society. He was also president of the Houston Academy of Medicine, the American Ophthalmological Society (1955), and the Houston and Texas societies of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology and vice president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology (1941). He served as a member of the American Board of Ophthalmology for nine years, including two years as chairman (1947–48).

Goar married Italca West, who died in 1927. They had one son. In 1931 Goar married Eleise Hailey. They had two children. Goar died in a Houston hospital on April 25, 1971.